Konami has flexed its legal muscles and quashed an ambitious attempt by an enthusiastic 17-year-old fan to remake Hideo Kojima’s PlayStation 4 micro horror masterpiece PT for PC – but, in a surprisingly positive twist, has seemingly offered an internship in the process.

PT (AKA Playable Teaser) surprise-launched during Sony’s Gamescom conference in 2014, and was, initially at least, shrouded in mystery. Supposedly a demo for a larger game of the same name, PT quickly garnered praise for its stiflingly atmospheric, genuinely unnerving take on first-person horror, all the more impressive for the fact that it unfolded in a single, tiny location – an ever-looping corridor in a largely unremarkable family home.

Although Hideo Kojima’s name wasn’t attached to the oddity on release (it bore the name of fictitious developer 7780s Studio), PT contained sufficient clues that fans quickly put the pieces together. And it took only slightly longer for dedicated sleuths to solve its final mystery, discovering that PT was, in fact, a teaser for a brand-new entry in Konami’s long-neglected Silent Hill series – one from Hideo Kojima, The Shape of Water director Guillermo del Toro, and reportedly, manga horror master Junji Ito.

Unfortunately, Silent Hills, as the project was known, never released; it was cancelled in 2015, and Konami permanently pulled PT from the PlayStation Store – meaning that it now mainly lives on only on the hard-drives of those PS4 owners swift enough to preserve it for prosperity.

Needless to say, PT’s elusiveness has led passionate fans down may different avenues to keep its legacy, as a genuinely remarkable piece of horror gaming history, alive – including several attempts to rebuild the experience from scratch. All of which leads us back to one of the most high-profile efforts – PC for PT, created by a 17-year-old enthusiast developer, Qimsar.

PT for PC first garnered attention several weeks back, when Qimsar announced in a Reddit post that he’d been working on a remake of PT in Unreal Engine (as his very first development project, no less) since January of this year. “Many others have begun trying to make their own ports,” he said at the time, “but as far as I can tell, I’m the only person who is still working on it, and I’m the only one who will finish.”

“He essentially told me that he was very sorry for being the bearer of bad news, but I would have to take down my remake”, Qimsar explained. “I was told that he and many other people at Konami saw and really liked my remake, but legit due to legal issues that were out of his or anybody else’s control really, he had to ask me to take down my remake”.

Qimsar agreed to comply with the request, and, after a lengthy chat, was told that some Konami merchandise would be sent out shortly. And in the longer-term, in a remarkably positive turn of events, it seems like a potential internship with Konami has been mooted “in which I would do stuff with Konami US, EU, and Japan” – an offer that Konami will hopefully honour.

For his part, Qimsar admits to being a little disappointed at the sudden collapse of his first big project, but he’s dealing with the news in admirably good spirits.

“I guess I’ll just chillax for the time being and spend some time learning some more about using Blender, 3DS Max, and Substance”, he explained, noting that he still plans to finish his project privately, if possible. “I hope this isn’t an issue with Konami, but I still intend to keep my promise on being the first one to finish a PT remake just to show it to my dad to make him extra proud.”